Archives for August 2010

This month, the Government of Canada announced it is implementing stricter regulations with the aim of further improving the working conditions for temporary workers and live-in caregivers in Canada. According to the federal government, consultations held over the past two years revealed that employers were exploiting some live-in caregivers because the system made them vulnerable.

“Temporary foreign workers come to Canada in a very vulnerable position because they are dependent upon their employer,” said Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants (CSIC) Chair Nigel Thomson. “These new rules will help ensure that employers play by the rules.”

To address this, the federal government is tightening the regulations affecting live-in caregivers and temporary foreign workers, as well as the people who hire them. “The government is taking action to protect temporary foreign workers, including live-in caregivers, from potential abuse and exploitation,” explained Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.

New regulations came into effect in April 2010 that required employers to provide contracts that specify wages, benefits, accommodation, duties, hours of work, and holiday and sick leave entitlements.

Starting in April 2011, new rules will apply a more rigorous assessment to jobs for live-in caregivers and temporary foreign workers before the employers are given the authorization to hire. The assessment will address whether the employer has followed the rules in the past and has honoured their commitments to workers with respect to wages, working conditions and occupation. Failure to meet the commitments will result in a two-year prohibition on hiring foreign workers.

Other countries that host foreign temporary workers and live-in caregivers, including Hong Kong, Germany, Israel and other nations in Europe and the Middle East, do not allow these types of workers to become citizens. They are meant to stay in those host countries for years as temporary guest workers and any of their children born there are not considered as having rights to citizenship.

Under Canada’s innovative program, foreign live-in caregivers may become citizens of Canada. They are “fast-tracked” and can apply for permanent-resident status after completing 24 months of employment. Under the new Citizenship and Immigration Canada regulations, live-in-caregivers have four years, instead of three, to complete the required 24 months of full-time work. There will also be more flexibility with respect to the amount of time given to meet the requirements needed for permanent residence status. Any overtime worked may now be used to apply for permanent residency more quickly. Under the law, it will be possible for a person who works a lot of overtime to apply earlier, or the deadline may be extended if the person works less than full-time hours or needs time off due to illness, for example.

“We owe it to them, their employers and all Canadians to ensure that the program is fair and equitable. After all, they are an essential element of Canada’s economic success,” said Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.

Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program helps address temporary labour shortages by allowing employers to hire foreign workers when sufficient numbers of Canadian workers are not readily available. Without access to temporary foreign labour, many small businesses in Canada would not be able to function and would be forced into insolvency.

These new regulations are seen as important because it demonstrates Canada’s position that temporary foreign workers and live-in caregivers should be encouraged to apply for permanent resident status and that they may become citizens in a timely fashion and move on to other forms of employment if they choose.

A foreign national who wishes to work in Canada generally requires a work permit. Work permits allow people to quickly begin working in Canada and can be a stepping stone toward Canadian permanent resident visas.

A work permit is generally required for a foreign national who intends to “work” in Canada. For Canadian immigration purposes, work is defined as an activity for which wages are paid or commission is earned, or that competes directly with activities of Canadian citizens or permanent residents in the Canadian labor market. Any activity that does not take an opportunity from a Canadian to be employed or gain work experience is not considered work eg: volunteer work or work done by phone/internet where the person is employed by a company outside Canada.

The Alberta Immigrant Nominee Program (AINP) is designed to support Alberta’s economic growth by attracting work-ready immigrants to the province of Alberta. However, given current job market and economic conditions, Alberta has decided to temporarily stop accepting applications for two of its streams: the Family Stream and the U.S. Visa Holder Category. According to the news release by the Government of Alberta, this cancellation is only temporary until further notice.

Alberta’s economy, the strongest in Canada, is expected to rebound this year and next, with growth projected at 3.1 per cent and 4.2 per cent, according to the latest forecast report by RBC Economics. Steady gains in jobs are expected as the economy continues to improve following the recession in 2009. Economic recoveries are rarely felt simultaneously or evenly across different regions of Canada and employment creation in Alberta has lagged behind improvement to the job market in other parts of Canada. For example, more jobs have been created in Quebec since 2009 than were lost during the recession.

It is important to note that all applications under either the Family Stream or U.S. Visa Holder Category that were postmarked on or before August 23, 2010 will still be accepted for processing and will be processed according to the most recently published processing times and program criteria. Alberta recently updated the processing times for the U.S. Visa Holder Category to at least 28 months from the date your application was received by the AINP.

“We will continue to process applications for people who have the skills our growing economy needs,” said Thomas Lukaszuk, Minister of Employment and Immigration for the province of Alberta. The focus for AINP will shift toward nominating people who currently work in permanent jobs and/or who have job offers in occupations that are considered in-demand in the province of Alberta.

The AINP is a provincial nomination program (PNP) managed by the Government of Alberta’s Ministry of Employment and Immigration in cooperation with the Government of Canada’s department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC). Individuals nominated for immigration to Canada by the Government of Alberta can apply for a permanent resident visa through CIC as a Provincial Nominee along with their spouse/common-law partner and dependent children. CIC has final authority on all Provincial Nominee permanent resident applications.

The federal government decides the number of people Alberta can nominate for permanent residence. Earlier this month, the Government of Canada granted Alberta’s wish for an increase in the number of permanent resident visas available for issuance under the provincial nomination program. Alberta will receive 5,000 immigrants this year under the Alberta Immigrant Nomination Program (AINP) which is a significant increase from the 4,200 allocated last year and the 2,800 allocated two years ago.

Alberta will continue to accept applications under the following streams of its provincial nomination program:

The provincial nominees are important to help sustain both short- and long-term economic growth, said Alberta Immigration Minister Thomas Lukaszuk. Alberta’s preference is not to attract only temporary foreign workers, but permanent residents through its provincial nomination program.

The Government of Canada increased the number of visas that may be issued this year for Canadian permanent residence under the provincial nomination programs. Citizenship and Immigration Canada decided to increase the numbers beyond what was originally promised earlier this year. This year, Alberta will now receive 5,000 immigrants under the Alberta Immigrant Nomination Program (AINP); British Columbia’s provincial nomination program will receive 3,500; Saskatchewan will receive 4,000, and Manitoba will receive 5,000.

The Government of Canada is committed to strengthening Canada’s knowledge economy. Canada recently announced it will invest $600-million as part of Canada’s Economic Action Plan to promote research excellence and improve research facilities and equipment. This investment will enable Canadian universities to develop and attract top scientists while improving long-term competitiveness.

A skilled labour shortage in the electricity generation sector has the potential to hurt Canada’s ability to develop clean sources of energy. Over the next 10 years, 40% of all workers in the electricity sector plan to retire and 74% of the industry’s workers are now already over the age of 40. Unless Canada is able to attract skilled workers from abroad, there will be a a large gap between the demand and supply of trained staff for the thousands of new green power projects that are expected to be up and running between 2011 and 2013.

Earlier this month a dilapidated vessel, the MV Sun Sea, was escorted to a British Columbia harbour by a flotilla of Canadian authorities. Soon after docking, there emerged from her hold a desperate collection of nearly 500 Tamil men, women and children, all at the ready to seek asylum in Canada. They had just spent a harrowing four months at sea, living literally cheek by jowl, with little more than a litre of water a week to drink. Their claims for asylum are based on a genuine fear of persecution if returned to their homeland, Sri Lanka, because as Tamils, they had come out on the losing side of a 26-year old bloody civil war that took the lives of 100,000 people.